Assembly Adventures

Now that I've moved into my new house, I'm trying to get it furnished.  This is not as easy as you might think.  A lot of my furniture is being made piece by piece by a local carpenter.  He does nice work, but you never know how long it will take. 

Since my bedroom does not have closets, a wardrobe was high on my priority list.  I'm settling in, and I want to put my clothes away!  I decided to look at the pre-fabricated furniture available in town.  Apart from the time factor, I was not sure I wanted to draw up plans for something as complicated as a wardrobe.  That's how the carpenter works--you draw it, he builds it.

I actually found a wardrobe, and I enjoyed chatting with the lady shop owner... and anyone else in the shop at the time, who were naturally curious.  Their fascination increased when I declined to have someone come to my house to put the wardrobe together.  "How are you going to have it assembled?" they wanted to know.  "Oh, I'll do it myself," I replied.  This was evidently unheard-of.  They couldn't believe it.  Grinning, I convinced them I was serious, and they told me where to find the warehouse to pick up the long, flat boxes of parts.  (I was using a taxi for this trip, so the driver hired a porter with a big push cart to come along.)  The shop owner told me I could come back when I needed assembly help.

My house helper was equally surprised when I brought the pieces home and explained my intentions.  I didn't know what the big deal was.

It is true that pre-made furniture around here is not like what you get at home.  I was amused to see the instructions.  Here is the one and only page:

If you examine it, you'll find that although the different bolts are all given labels, the labels are not all to be found in the diagrams.  Another challenge I discovered was that many of the screw holes were missing.  I spent a lot of time in careful measurement, and a lot of elbow grease forcing in the screws with my cheap screwdriver.  A friend with a drill helped me with the doors.  (You might think this would be a good reason to have the shop guy do the assembly, but I can practically guarantee that he does not have a drill, either.)  When it was finally done, I was pretty proud of myself.

The next time my house helper came, she was full of admiration.  Admiration for the wardrobe--definitely a "rich" person's item--but also admiration for my skills.  She proclaimed me a fundi, the generic term for a craftsman or repairman, and later boasted to an actual fundi that I would do better work than he was doing... he was having trouble with a door handle.  (I protested, wanting to save face for the poor guy, and also not sure I wanted to tackle the problem now that he'd taken everything apart already.)

I'm wondering if all this astonishment stems from childhood differences.  I grew up playing with Legos.  From babyhood on, Western children get all sorts of toys that require fitting together and other types of spatial thinking.  Kids here don't have toys, period.  I see homemade toys, every now and then, but not many.  Maybe I shouldn't take for granted the ability to read and follow basic diagrams!